Live Class Justification Email for Migrations and Upgrades
Please register _EMPLOYEE_NAME_HERE_ for Brent Ozar’s Live Class Season Pass 2026 before the 50% launch sale ends on July 10. https://training.brentozar.com/p/live-class-season-pass
The regular price is $4,395/person, but the launch sale price is $2,197.50 through July 11. Registration for the first rotation closes at the same time, and if we miss it, registration closes until October. To get that discount, we have to use a credit card or purchasing card. If we ask for a PO or invoice, it’s full price.
Use their name & email as the buyer info. The receipt will go there, and tell them to forward it to you for accounting.
The background: I’m approving this because we need stronger SQL Server performance tuning skills before we make bigger platform, upgrade, migration, or cloud decisions. Those projects tend to expose existing performance problems, and I want us to be able to diagnose them correctly instead of guessing.
The next rotation of classes is:
- Fundamentals Week: July 13-17 (which includes index, query, and server tuning)
- Mastering Index Tuning 2026: Aug 31-Sept 4
- Mastering Query Tuning 2026: Sept 28-Oct 2
- Mastering Server Tuning 2026: Oct 19-23
Each class is Monday-Friday, 4 hours per day. I’ll clear their calendar for the class times on those dates so they can focus on the training while still being available for urgent issues as needed.
This is a good fit because migrations and upgrades often turn into performance investigations. When something gets slower after a move, it is easy to blame the new platform, the cloud provider, the SQL Server version, the VM size, or the storage. Sometimes those really are the problem, but often the root cause is an old query, index design, parameter sniffing issue, bad plan, or server bottleneck that only became obvious during the change.
I want us to have someone who can prove what SQL Server is actually waiting on, which queries are causing the most pressure, and whether we need code changes, indexing changes, configuration changes, or more infrastructure.
The goals are smoother migrations, faster troubleshooting, fewer surprises, and better decisions before we spend more on hardware, cloud resources, licensing, or outside help.
There’s cheaper recorded training options, but we’ve found that the team just doesn’t complete that training. With live classes, they can ask questions, stay focused, and block the time on their calendar. The live format creates the urgency and structure to actually get through the material. If they miss a class, though, like if an emergency pops up, they also get access to the recordings through the end of the year.
Brent has 25+ years of real-world SQL Server performance tuning experience, has trained over 18,000 students, and teaches with the full-size Stack Overflow database instead of tiny demo databases. That matters because migration and upgrade issues do not show up clearly in toy demos. They show up when real-sized data, real query patterns, and real production pressure hit the system.
The classes also cover practical troubleshooting with the free open source First Responder Kit tools like sp_Blitz, sp_BlitzCache, and sp_BlitzIndex. Those can help us compare symptoms, find the most resource-intensive queries, identify risky indexes, and gather better evidence before and after changes.
One other thing I like: the training itself is built and taught by a real human being, and Brent says none of the training material is generated by AI. At the same time, the classes include practical use of AI tools because that’s where SQL Server troubleshooting is headed in 2027 and beyond. I want our team to learn how to use AI effectively and cost-effectively, with the right guardrails, instead of either blindly trusting it or ignoring it completely.
Please get this registered before July 10 so we can get the 50% launch sale price and get into the first rotation.